BR.. sorry to hear you are still struggling occasionally, hope you make the XC.

PP.. you obviously got a new set of multi coloured crayons for Xmas! Nice set of figures.

More improvement in the rib dept here, 14+5+8+5 this week and I'm off the painkillers altogether now. I can still feel a dull ache but it is perfectly bearable. I have what was an 'A' race club 5 miler on Sunday - fast & flat. Having spent the last 3 weeks either not running or running slowly will surely have cost me a bit of race sharpness. Still, I might as well just run it as best as I can and see what happens.

In other news I took the plunge and entered the Frankfurt marathon on October 27th. The price went up on 1st Jan so in true Yorkshire fashion I entered on New Year's Eve!

Sorry for hiding recently - not been a great end or start to the year for me broke up with my long-term gf (almost 3 years) just before the end of the year, which I'm sure you understand hasn't had me in the best mindset. Been trying to run but it's all a bit aimless right now, but I am glad out having the outlet! I'm planning on the Proms 3k tomorrow, not feeling in the best of shapes right now but one more race will count me in for the end-of-series prizes (if I'm quick enough of course).

Anyway enough downer news for now had some holiday days planned for the end of January to the US which obviously isn't happening now, still need to have them confirmed but I was thinking instead I might have a little trip down south, which may or may not include a Saturday morning somewhere

I'd be looking for somewhere flat, fast and certified to have a real crack at sub-18. So, questions:

Err, York? A trip 'down south' can mean many things when you are from Bonny Scotland! Sorry to hear about the GF Duck, just practice your chat up lines again and I'm sure a gorgeous damsel will head your way again very soon.

Never mind BR. Might see if I can get down in the summer (and struggle horrendously as I'll be 400/800 race fit and not 5000 fit ).

Anyway... read back time.

Mr V - some great training recently and excellent year's training overall. Keep that kind of level up and it'll be a great 2013.

Phil, what a great table! Cearly not as many running miles + more bike miles hasn't been a bad decision at all. Do you think you'd have done better or worse with more running miles or do you think you found a good balance?

Josh, considering you need to run two 18'00s back to back to run 36'00 for 10k I think it's safe to say you can afford to be a little more ambitious with your 5k target

I'd say my main source of knowledge has been you fine folk along with plenty of trial and error myself, and some common sense of sound training principles.

Being a coach is fun, stressful, exhilarating, and challenging. Fun because it allows me to give something back to someone and help them improve. Stressful because you are in charge of their training so to a certain extent the buck stops with you. Exhilarating when they have that breakthrough and you realise it was worth it. Challenging to make everything work and to modify training to an invidual's needs!

WJH, good 8*800 session, first one a bit fast though good to see you kept it consistent aside from that though.

YD, I'm consistently impressed by your long runs and the overall strength/pace of them (and your MP/HMP session - I love that one). Those LRs at a decent pace is going to hold you in very good stead I am sure when it comes to race day. I'll put York down as an option for now.

1,913.75M (almost the equivalent of driving from Aberdeen to Marseille)46 races (inc. parkruns but not 'unofficial' events like Fetch Miles etc)18 pbs ('official' events, again inc. parkruns, 16 without)14 raced parkruns (with an average finishing position of 4.2 - not bad!)

Duck sorry to hear your sad news If you want to come this far south we have a spare room and are about 35 mins from Waterloo station so readily accessible for some town touring too. You'd be welcome to stay We are out with the london fetchies on 25th Jan too and running the Southerns XC on 26th at parliament hill!

3.5 miles for me this morning still asleep

Another 8 hours at work today broken into two 4 hours shifts with 4 hours between, looking forward to my afternoon nap right now

Do you think you'd have done better or worse with more running miles or do you think you found a good balance?

The way I look at it, they are two very separate questions. I might be a quicker runner if I'd done more running... on the other hand, as I've mentioned before if I didn't do any other stuff there is absolutely no way I'd be spending the equivalent time running instead, and if I tried to, would I have ended up with another injury? As to finding a good balance, yes definitely. I love cycling, I want to continue doing it competitively, and because it gives me a whole different focus to think about, I think it keeps my motivation for running that bit fresher.

Was going to supplement yesterday's lunchtime spinning class with an easy run in the evening but went late night sales shopping instead. Easy 6.5M planned for lunchtime, should leave the legs reasonably fresh for XC tomorrow.

Thanks everyone. It'll be difficult for a while but things will be ok in the end

Good MP sesh cb, are you upping it from ~4M at any point?

Curly, now that is tempting! York parkrun would be very good too. Ooh decisions...

Ran the Proms 3k today. Not my best race ever, ended up with 10'21 and 4th place with 5'03/5'17 splits. Breathing was fantastic, but legs are still missing something. Went off too fast (it was a quick start even by Proms standards) and felt good until halfway when the top 3 picked it up and I really didn't have anything in the legs to respond with. Still another solid result (my second-quickest 3k ever!) and there's time for it to come back to me before the indoors in 2 weeks.

Pleased I can run a 5'03 1500 without it being especially difficult. I felt great doing strides before the start so reckon I could have turned out a decent 800/1500 today, but it's the longer distance stuff that is a bit harder than normal right now.

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